................ Understanding the Fear of Death
When you conquer the fear of death, you conquer death itself, because death is just one more imaginary experience! Our fear makes us imagine death to be more frightening than it actually is. We wear glasses of fear, which don't allow us to see reality.
When you experience death psychologically, you release the energy that has been locked in the swadhishtana due to death-fear and the swadhishtana opens. When the swadhishtana opens, the whole quality of life changes.
You may ask why you need to know about dying consciously. Only when you know about death can you live with the right understanding of life. Otherwise, you will not live life the right way.
When you can accept death as just a continuity in another form, your capacity to enjoy life is increased. Your whole body relaxes, your consciousness expands, your living capacity expands. Whether you accept it or not, every moment of your life, the fear of death lingers in the subconscious mind. By understanding death and fear of death, your life will turn out to be rich, not wealthy may be, but rich. Richness is what is really important in life.
When we understand the depths, the secrets and mystery of death, we understand the secrets of life. We need to solve death and see it as a mere continuity in a different form. Otherwise, we will miss life itself. If we understand that death is nothing but continuity in another form, we will not fear death. And when we stop fearing death, we will know to what extent we have been missing life.
If you deeply analyze the fear of death, you will come to know that people are afraid to die because unconsciously, they feel that they should have been somewhere higher up than where they are now. They feel they have not reached their actual place in life and so they are not ready to leave.
Actually, if you deeply analyze your fears, all of our fears are fear of death only. They manifest themselves in different ways, that's all.
Daily Awareness Practices
Unless death becomes a conscious experience, the fear of it will never leave you. Repeatedly listening to these words will help; develop a conviction about them; try to see how your minor and major fears are actually related to the fear of dying. Bring some clarity into all your day-to-day fears; see how interrelated all your fears are; bring awareness into your fears; then you will steadily evolve and come closer to the truth.
Never fear to look at fear. The moment you fear to look, you are only creating more fear because it becomes more unknown to you. Just look into the fear and accept that you are in fear. Automatically, the fear will dissolve. If you start facing your fears one after another with awareness, somewhere down the line, intelligence will replace fear and you will have less and less of the fear emotion in you.
Darkness Meditation (Total time duration: 30 minutes)
The Nirbhaya Dhyana is a meditation technique taken from Vedanta. This meditation gives an out-of-body experience, which is actually the death experience. When done regularly, each time the cosmic energy which is the darkness present everywhere, continues to empower and energize your body and mind. It also strengthens the swadhishtana chakra.
All our fears are related to the fear of death. We conceive of death as something dark and fearful. Actually, darkness is nourishing. The darkness in your mother's womb nurtured you. You lived, ate, drank in darkness. If you go to sleep and get up in the morning, you feel rejuvenated because of the darkness.
Darkness is rejuvenating life energy. It enables us to connect with the very roots of our existence, giving us the courage, confidence and feeling that we are being taken care of.